My first project - 1974 CB360 K0

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Great tip

I just wished I had started getting more involved all those years ago instead of waiting until I was in my 50’s!

I know that feeling only more so, I left it until I was 71 before I caught the resto bug just a few months before COVID!

[Craizeehair]

Making some progress, slow and steady. It’s back together and I’m pretty sure I’m ready to start on the top end. I’ll go over everything again to double check and will probably leave well alone until after Christmas now.

[Craizeehair]

I had a bit of time to get the engine back together and back in the bike, everything fitted and ready to fire.

Happy to say it started first time, revving really high but it did fire into life straight away, no choke needed so not sure if that’s a good thing?

Then I noticed a leak from both carb bowls, they are a second set of carbs that I picked up and went through a couple days f months ago, I guess they will need new gaskets. 

Good to be back on it though.

[Bryanj]

Fuel level should not be that high, float levels wrong, floats sticking or bad needls/seats

[Craizeehair]

Thanks Bryan, I will check those out. That makes sense, i wish I knew a bit more that I do already but having now thought about it, should it not have run out of the overflow as well?

[Oddjob]

Depends if the overflow isn't blocked for some reason, the hole is extremely small so it's quite easy for it to block.

[Craizeehair]

Makes sense, I’ve taken the carbs off and will go through them again. I was considering this anyway as I recently got some fresh brass work for them which arrived after they were put back together and put back on the bike. What was in there was cleaned properly but it did look a bit chewed and worn, so hopefully they can go back on in the best possible shape.

Fingers crossed the kit I bought is ok, I know some have poor feedback.

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the replies and advice I have received, as a novice it is very much appreciated.

[Oddjob]

If you take the floats bowls off again just visually check if the overflow tube sits higher than the joint flange, if it does then it will leak out of the joint before going down the tube, if the joint seal isn’t good that is, if the seal is good then it would go down the overflow tube.

[Craizeehair]

I nearly had a very successful day! I stripped the carbs,  a good clean and inspection, new hardware, adjusted float heights etc and bench sync  had me putting them back on the bike, I’m even getting not too bad at fitting the push / pull cables now as I’ve had to do it a few times, air filters on etc and the bike started first time, it was revving high but sounded ok, adjusted tick over and got the carbtune pro fitted which showed it was a bit out.

With a bit of fettling I got them pretty well balanced and this is when it went a bit pear shaped, instead of accepting pretty well balanced, I kept trying to get it exactly spot on, along with adjusting tick over, it just kept getting worse. Eventually it sounded like it gave up on life, then just died and wouldn’t start again. After a bit of mucking about I decided to bite the bullet and take the carbs off, do another bench sync and start again.

I did the bench sync, which was way off when I checked but was no problem to do again as I did before. I put the carbs, air filters etc back on, gave some fuel and I now have a bike that won’t start, I have spark but it just will not fire. So I have given up for this weekend and will get back to it another day.

I’m not sure what has changed but it started first time earlier and it’s always been good for that. Anyway, that’s why I bought this bike, to get stuck in and learn a bit, so at least it’s giving me what I paid for!

A lesson for next time maybe, when it’s pretty near spot on, leave it alone?

[Johnny4428]

Just a thought when you removed the carbs laterly was there any fuel in them?

[Craizeehair]

Just a thought when you removed the carbs laterly was there any fuel in them?

Yes, there was fuel in the bowls that needed draining

[Craizeehair]

Had a little look tonight, carbs back off and gone through again, I’m now more than happy that they have to be ok.

I did check for spark again and found that I didn’t have spark on the right, I did briefly have spark on the right then nothing, so it’s back to square one and see what’s happening there. I’m sure there was spark yesterday? Not sure what could have happened to cause this whilst it was running and balancing the carbs, coincidence maybe?

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

All it needs is a tug on a connector or something similar to loose spark.
Just needs checking starting with power from the ignition switch follow methodically through the wiring to the coil power, make sure the kill switch isn't causing an issue.

I had a slighly similar issue on my 400, turned out to be a poor soldered connection on the new fuse box from DS.

[Craizeehair]

Well I’ve had fun and games in the shed!

The bike has been a nightmare to get running, a couple of weeks ago it started up and was running on the left cylinder only, whilst trying to figure things out I noticed that there was sparking at the engine mount from the cylinder head to the frame, as you can see in the picture.

I turned it off and started to try and figure out what was happening. A poor earth or something shorting were suggestions offered up.

I finally got a chance today to investigate, bearing in mind I haven’t touched the bike since so not sure what could have changed but it would not start.

What I found was that the spark plugs weren’t sparking correctly, if I held the plug tip just off the engine casing the spark would jump from the plug to the engine casing, touch the plug to the case and no spark. I had two spare plugs and tried them and the bike fired into life, both cylinders firing perfectly!

I checked for the sparking on the frame and there it was, so off with engine again, I checked earth strap from the battery connection, to the main earth at the engine bracket, the earth connection to the frame by the coils. I checked to see if I could see any wires that could be shorting anywhere but everything looked fine. I remade the earth connections and fired her up and the sparking at the frame has gone?

I’m completely unsure what the issue was as I found nothing obvious?

I have a couple of questions if anyone could offer up any advice

Does anyone have a suggestion as to what could have been causing the sparking at the frame issue?

Could that issue be the reason both new spark plugs were faulty?

It is running as good as it has right now but I’m not convinced I actually did anything to rectify a fault??

[Bryanj]

Plugs probably failed because of the time you spent running incorrect mix whilst trying to get it right.
Sparking to frame has to be a bad earth connection, did you remove paint from brackets and casings?